


Winning the Lottery

by aeli_kindara



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-10
Updated: 2006-07-10
Packaged: 2019-02-16 02:19:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13044459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: In the first message, he can hardly recognize his own son's voice.





	Winning the Lottery

**Author's Note:**

> I'm randomly in a mood to repost some of my old SPN fic from LJ days, so... here's an angsty thing!

In the first message, he hardly recognizes his own son’s voice, hardly can tell what he says, because that single word _Dad_ is so cracked and strangled that it sounds less like a word than the cry of a dying man, heart ripped straight from his chest. Then there’s a harsh intake of breath and a click, and John can only imagine Dean letting the phone fall to the floor and burying his face in his hands, not letting a single tear squeeze its way out past the sturdy barrier of his eyelids, because when his voice sounds like that, that’s all a man can do.

\---

The second message comes in at 7:24 in the morning, four hours and eight minutes after the first. This time, it’s angry — ” _You stupid fucker, why can’t you pick up your fucking phone?_ ” John contemplates the sleek, silver device over his coffee, right hand clenched too tightly around the styrofoam cup. “I got a better chance at winning the lottery,” Dean said once. “From Lawrence... when I was dying...”

John bites down on his lower lip. He never asked how Dean got out of that one alive. It’s an unspoken rule — when death dogs your footsteps at every turn, you just don’t talk about it. Settle for being around to talk at all.

He drains the cup and reaches forward to pick up the phone, flicks it open with his thumb. Dean’s name hovers on the glowing screen, and for a moment he lets his fingers run lightly over the buttons, almost able to taste the longing that bubbles up like bile in his throat.

It’s too much. He shuts the phone, a decisive clap, and shoves into his pocket, heading for the door.

\---

“Dad, please.” The third message is quiet, subdued, and John can almost see the expression on his son’s face. “I — I can’t — Sam —” The hoarse, choking sound that can only be the beginning of a sob, and then a click — goddamn clicks — and John’s left staring uneasily at nothing at all.

He gets in the truck and drives.

\---

He’s heading into some random fast food restaurant—didn’t take the time to notice the name—for a late dinner when his phone rings for the fourth time that day. He stops dead in the middle of the parking lot, hand going to his pocket. He doesn’t want to do this, can’t let himself come near his boys again after what happened last time. He nearly killed Dean, for God’s sake. None of them can be safe unless he keeps far away.

Headlights glare in his eyes, and a horn honks. The phone rings again. He retreats to the truck.

He opens it on the tail end of the fourth ring, answering with a single, harsh “Yeah?”

There’s a brief silence. Then, tentatively — ”Dad?”

“What’s happened with Sam?” John asks gruffly, turning to stare at the reflection of his unshaven face in the truck’s window. There are lines that weren’t there a couple months ago, bags beneath his eyes heavy enough that they might drag the flesh entirely away.

“He hurt?” John presses, looking away. “How bad?”

“Dad, I — he —” John can hear him take a deep, stuttering breath, knows he’s revealing the kind of vulnerability he hates, knows that he’d as soon wrestle an alligator as keep talking.

“Don’t you dare hang up on me, son,” he orders, eyes stinging from the dust in the parking lot.

In his normal frame of mind, even with Dean it’d be “That’s rich, from you” or “Like you’d return the favor.” Instead, he just takes another breath, slowly but smoothly except for one hitch at the beginning. “Yes, sir.”

“Now tell me what’s wrong with Sam, and what you want me to do.”

“Dad, it’s not —” Dean swallows audibly. “You can _come_ ,” he says finally, words tumbling angrily, painfully over each other. “You can get your ass here — Montana, room 217 at the Super 8 in Billings, and — Dad, don’t you get it, don’t you — Dad, _he’s dead_.”

The words feel like two bullets straight to the heart, and he falls sharply onto the oil-stained pavement, ears roaring, wondering for a moment _how the hell his own son could do that to him_. “Dean?” he chokes out.

“Dad, I’m sorry, I tried — it was my fault, I —”

“Dean —” He wants to say _it’s all right, it’s not your fucking fault_ , but his brain’s reeling too much to even think it, because _Sam_ —

“Dad...”

“I’ll be there,” John tells him roughly, and doesn’t even snap the phone shut before hurling it away across the parking lot. He means to leave, he needs to leave _right now_ , but his legs are just too weak to get him back into the car, and instead he buries his face in his arms and doesn’t let himself think.

He hauls himself to his feet fifteen minutes later and goes to retrieve the cell—can’t leave something like that lying around, security and shit — before finally climbing into the truck and heading north.

\---

When he gets to Billings, he’s not at all sure whether he’s surprised to find Room 217 at the Super 8 empty, a phone book on the near bed open to the address of the morgue. Too late to do anything now.

He sleeps on the floor between the two beds, because neither of them feels quite right. In the morning, he picks up the receiver of the phone that’s sitting innocent on the nightstand and dials Dean’s number.

This time, it’s his son who doesn’t answer.


End file.
